Kidspiration Mind Map

Tonight in Educational Technology, we went over academic software. Academic software is software designed to assist and support both educators and learners in teaching and learning. While in class tonight, I had the chance to play with a variety of academic software such as Tux Paint, Google Earth, Kidspiration, Comic life and iPhoto. Each different software had its own table for me to use in a pre-planned hands on activity. Each station allowed for an oppurtunity to discover the interaction between the software and the student.

At one of the stations, the computer had Kidspiration installed on it. Kidspiration is an interactive hands on learning tool for students. It allows for students to map out or create brainstorm webs of various subjects. One of my assignments from the night involved the creation of a mind map outlining five of my friends and five of my family members. Along with names, I had to include a picture or something that reminded me about that person as well as a short description. This assignment was rather easy, actually extremely easy. Kidspiration has a friendly user interface, making it easy to create, edit, and mange any mind map. The youngest of students could use it with ease.

I have always written out brainstorm maps or other medias relating to this idea, but never created something on a computer expressing the same information. Using Kidspiration allows the user be a little more creative by integrating clipart and other various forms of media. No longer with text bubbles be the standard bubble shape, but rather an image conveying the idea written, in this case typed. Kidspiration also allows for students to rearrange the material in any fashion they like, meaning they are free to move any object around.

Kidspiration could easily be incorporated in any lesson plan. It's just a matter of figuring out how a teacher wants to use it. I could see Language Arts teachers using it to map out events in a story or breaking down parts of sentence. Science teachers could use it to classify a variety of insects into categories or it could be used in History to classify major historical events. Regardless of how its used, it will be easy to incorporate into any lesson plan.